Public Banking Institute News: April 18, 2017

Santa Fe’s Public Bank Moves Another Step Closer!

A public bank task force Resolution has just passed the Santa Fe Finance Committee, clearing the way for the City Council to vote on proceeding with creation of the Task Force that will be responsible to create a public bank for the city. That vote is scheduled for April 26th and is expected to pass.

Santa Fe has been leading the nation in efforts to create the first new public bank in America in 98 years — it began the process at the end of 2014. Local citizens organized the effort with education, expert research and support for elected officials, participation in numerous civic meetings and collaborations, providing the steady commitment and patience needed to realize this prospect.

About a dozen media outlets spent time reporting on how the public banking movement is emerging around the country. In These Times reporter David Dayen filed this observation……

Student Focus: PBI & PA Project Present Banking’s Public Option

Two world-renown economic thinkers came to Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA last week to discuss how a public banking option banking can affect governmental effectiveness. Sponsored by the PA Project and PBI, economist Michael Hudson and Public Banking Institute Founder Ellen Brown joined PBI Chair Walt McRee discussing the key differences between government’s unquestioned reliance on private capital markets and how an entirely new, more productive arrangement could be devises. Michael Hudson’s latest book J is for Junk Economics follows his earlier widely-acclaimed volume entitled Killing the Host which examined the predatory and exploitive nature of the financial systems that dominate the world.

Earlier, Ellen and Walt spoke with students at the New Jersey Institute for Technology, and Walt presented public banking to the graduate student conference of the Scholars Strategy Network at Rutgers University.

PBI representatives stay actively engaged in presenting the public banking option to numerous groups around the United States.

Ever the watchdog against corporate abuse and systemic decline, Ralph Nader took a new position in favor of public banking this past week in an article entitled The Savings and Stability of Public Banking.

New Jersey’s next governor may be riding into office with the public bank advantage. Democrat Phil Murphy has a strong lead in the polls, capturing attention and support with his idea to create a state owned bank. But the opposition is out swinging as well with misleading and incorrect statements about how the bank would work, saying that it would ‘inevitably’ fall into the infamous system of Jersey political corruption. Will citizens transcend the cynicism? Ellen Brown wrote a definitive statement on why the state would benefit.